Beyond the Gates by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

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Title: Beyond the Gates

Author: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

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Language: English

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BEYOND THE GATES.

BY

ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS,

AUTHOR OF “THE GATES AJAR,” “THE STORY OF AVIS,” ETC., ETC.

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Nineteenth Thousand.

colophon

BOSTON:

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge.

1884.

Copyright, 1883,

By ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge:

Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company.

TO MY BROTHER,

STUART,

WHO PASSED BEYOND, AUGUST 29, 1883.

Chapter I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV., XV.

NOTE.

It should be said, that, at the time of the departure of him to whose memory this little book is consecrated, the work was already

in press; and that these pages owe more to his criticism than can be acknowledged here.

E. S. P.

Gloucester, Massachusetts,

September, 1883.

BEYOND THE GATES.

I.

I had been ill for several weeks with what they called brain fever. The events which I am about to relate happened on the fifteenth

day of my illness.

Before beginning to tell my story, it may not be out of place to say a few words about myself, in order to clarify to the imagination

of the reader points which would otherwise involve numerous explanatory digressions, more than commonly misplaced in a tale dealing
with the materials of this.

I am a woman forty years of age. My father was a clergyman; he had been many years dead. I was living, at the time I refer to, in

my mother’s house in a factory town in Massachusetts. The town need not be more particularly mentioned, nor genuine family names
given, for obvious reasons. I was the oldest of four children; one of my sisters was married, one was at home with us, and there was a
boy at college.

I was an unmarried, but not an unhappy woman. I had reached a very busy, and sometimes I hoped a not altogether valueless,

middle age. I had used life and loved it. Beyond the idle impulse of a weary moment, which signifies no more than the reflex action of a
mental muscle, and which I had been in the habit of rating accordingly, I had never wished to die. I was well, vigorous, and active. I
was not of a dependent or a despondent temperament.

I am not writing an autobiography, and these things, not of importance in themselves, require only the briefest allusion. They will

serve to explain the general cast of my life, which in turn may define the features of my story.

There are two kinds of solitary: he who is drawn by the inward, and he who chooses the outward life. To this latter class I had

belonged. Circumstances, which it is not necessary to detail here, had thrust me into the one as a means of self-preservation from the
other, while I was yet quite young.

I had been occupied more largely with the experiences of other people than with my own. I had been in the habit of being

depended upon. It had been my great good fortune to be able to spend a part of my time among the sick, the miserable, and the poor.
It had been, perhaps, my better chance to be obliged to balance the emotional perils of such occupations by those of a different

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character. My business was that of a school-teacher, but I had traveled somewhat; I had served as a nurse during the latter years of
the war; in the Sanitary Commission; upon the Freedmen’s Bureau; as an officer in a Woman’s Prison, and had done a little work for
the State Bureau of Labor among the factory operatives of our own town. I had therefore, it will be seen, been spared the
deterioration of a monotonous existence. At the time I was taken ill I was managing a private school, rather large for the corps of
assistants which I could command, and had overworked. I had been at home, thus employed, with my mother who needed me, for
two years.

It may not be unsuitable, before proceeding with my narrative, to say that I had been a believer in the truths of the Christian

religion; not, however, a devotee. I had not the ecstatic temperament, and was not known among my friends for any higher order of
piety than that which is implied in trying to do one’s duty for Christ’s sake, and saying little about it or Him,—less than I wish I had
sometimes. It was natural to me to speak in other ways than by words; that does not prove that it was best. I had read a little, like all
thinking people with any intellectual margin to their lives, of the religious controversies of the day, and had not been without my share of
pressure from the fashionable reluctance to believe. Possibly this had affected a temperament not too much inclined towards the
supernatural, but it had never conquered my faith, which I think had grown to be dearer to me because I had not kept it without a fight
for it. It certainly had become, for this reason, of greater practical value. It certainly had become, for this and every reason, the most
valuable thing I had, or hoped to have. I believed in God and immortality, and in the history of Jesus Christ. I respected and practiced
prayer, but chiefly decided what I ought to do next minute. I loved life and lived it. I neither feared death nor thought much about it.

When I had been ill a fortnight, it occurred to me that I was very sick, but not that I could possibly die. I suffered a good deal at

first; after that much less. There was great misery for lack of sleep, and intolerable restlessness. The worst, however, was the continuity
of care. Those who have borne heavy responsibilities for any length of time will understand me. The incessant burden pressed on: now
a pupil had fallen into some disgraceful escapade; now the investments of my mother’s, of which I had the charge, had failed on the
dividends; then I had no remittance for the boy at college; then my sister, in a heart-breaking emergency, confided to me a peril against
which I could not lift a finger; the Governor held me responsible for the typhoid among the prisoners; I added eternal columns of
statistics for the Charity Boards, and found forever a mistake in each report; a dying soldier called to me in piercing tones for a cup of
water; the black girl to whom I read the Gospel of John, drowned her baby; I ran six looms in the mill for the mother of six children till
her seventh should be born; I staked the salvation of my soul upon answering the argument of Strauss to the satisfaction of an
unbelieving friend, and lost my wager; I heard my classes in Logic, and was unable to repeat anything but the “Walrus and the
Carpenter,” for the “Barbara Celarent.” Suddenly, one day, in the thick of this brain-battle, I slipped upon a pause, in which I distinctly
heard a low voice say,

“But Thine eternal thoughts move on,
Thine undisturbed affairs.”

It was my mother’s voice. I perceived then that she sat at my bedside in the red easy-chair, repeating hymns, poor soul! in the hope of
calming me.

I put out my hand and patted her arm, but it did not occur to me to speak till I saw that there were masses of pansies and some

mignonette upon the table, and I asked who sent them, and she told me the school-girls had kept them fresh there every day since I
was taken ill. I felt some pleasure that they should take the trouble to select the flowers I preferred. Then I asked her where the jelly
came from, and the grapes, and about other trifles that I saw, such as accumulate in any sick-room. Then she gave me the names of
different friends and neighbors who had been so good as to remember me. Chiefly I was touched by the sight of a straggly magenta
geranium which I noticed growing in a pot by the window, and which a poor woman from the mills had brought the day before. I
asked my mother if there were any letters, and she said, many, but that I must not hear them read; she spoke of some from the prison.
The door-bell often rang softly, and I asked why it was muffled, and who called. Alice had come in, and said something in an
undertone to mother about the Grand Army and resolutions and sympathy; and she used the names of different people I had almost
forgotten, and this confused me. They stopped talking, and I became at once very ill again.

The next point which I recall is turning to see that the doctor was in the room. I was in great suffering, and he gave me a few

spoonfuls of something which he said would secure sleep. I desired to ask him what it was, as I objected to narcotics, and preferred to
bear whatever was before me with the eyes of my mind open, but as soon as I tried to speak I forgot what I wished to say.

I do not know how long it was before the truth approached me, but it was towards evening of that day, the fifteenth, as I say, of

my illness, that I said aloud:

“Mother, Tom is in the room. Why has Tom come home?”
Tom was my little brother at college. He came towards the bed as I spoke. He had his hat in his hand, and he put it up before his

eyes.

“Mother!” I repeated louder than before. “Why have you sent for Tom?”
But Mother did not answer me. She leaned over me. I saw her looking down. She had the look that she had when my father

died; though I was so young when that happened, I had never forgotten my mother’s look; and I had never seen it since, from that day
until this hour.

“Mother! am I so sick as that? Mother!”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Mother. “Oh my dear, my dear!” ...
So after that I understood. I was greatly startled that they should feel me to be dangerously ill; but I was not alarmed.
“It is nonsense,” I said, after I had thought about it a little while. “Dr. Shadow was always a croaker. I have no idea of dying! I

have nursed too many sicker people than I am. I don’t intend to die! I am able to sit up now, if I want to. Let me try.”

“I’ll hold you,” said Tom, softly enough. This pleased me. He lifted all the pillows, and held me straight out upon his mighty arms.

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Tom was a great athlete—took the prizes at the gymnasium. No weaker man could have supported me for fifteen minutes in the
strained position by which he found that he could give me comfort and so gratify my whim. Tom held me a long time; I think it must
have been an hour; but I began to suffer again, and could not judge of time. I wondered how that big boy got such infinite tenderness
into those iron muscles. I felt a great respect for human flesh and bone and blood, and for the power and preciousness of the living
human body. It seemed much more real to me, then, than the spirit. It seemed an absurdity that any one should suppose that I was in
danger of being done with life. I said:—

“I’m going to live, Tom! Tell Mother I have no idea of dying. I prefer to live.”
Tom nodded; he did not speak; I felt a hot dash of tears on my face, which surprised me; I had not seen Tom cry since he lost

the football match when he was eleven years old.

They gave me something more out of the spoon, again, I think, at that moment, and I felt better. I said to Tom:—
“You see!” and bade them send Mother to lie down, and asked Alice to make her beef-tea, and to be sure and make it as we

did in the army. I do not remember saying anything more after this. I certainly did not suffer any more. I felt quiet and assured. Nothing
farther troubled me. The room became so still that I thought they must all have gone away, and left me with the nurse, and that she,
finding me so well, had herself fallen asleep. This rested me—to feel that I was no longer causing them pain—more than anything could
have done; and I began to think the best thing I could do would be to take a nap myself.

With this conviction quietly in mind I turned over, with my face towards the wall, to go to sleep. I grew calmer, and yet more

calm, as I lay there. There was a cross of Swiss carving on the wall, hanging over a picture of my father. Leonardo’s Christ—the one
from the drawing for the Last Supper, that we all know—hung above both these. Owing to my position, I could not see the other
pictures in the room, which was large, and filled with little things, the gifts of those who had been kind to me in a life of many busy
years. Only these three objects—the cross, the Christ, and my father—came within range of my eyes as the power of sleep advanced.
The room was darkened, as it had been since I became so ill, so that I was not sure whether it were night or day. The clock was
striking. I think it struck two; and I perceived the odor of the mignonette. I think it was the last thing I noticed before going to sleep,
and I remembered, as I did so, the theories which gave to the sense of smell greater significance than any of the rest; and remembered
to have read that it was either the last or the first to give way in the dying. (I could not recall, in my confused condition, which.) I
thought of this with pleased and idle interest; but did not associate the thought with the alarm felt by my friends about my condition.

I could have slept but a short time when I woke, feeling much easier. The cross, the Christ, and the picture of my father looked at

me calmly from the wall on which the sick-lamp cast a steady, soft light. Then I remembered that it was night, of course, and felt
chagrined that I could have been confused on this point.

The room seemed close to me, and I turned over to ask for more air.
As I did so, I saw some one sitting in the cushioned window-seat by the open window—the eastern window. No one had

occupied this seat, on account of the draught and chill, since my illness. As I looked steadily, I saw that the person who sat there was
my father.

His face was turned away, but his figure and the contour of his noble head were not to be mistaken. Although I was a mere girl

when he died, I felt no hesitation about this. I knew at once, and beyond all doubt, that it was he. I experienced pleasure, but little, if
any, surprise.

As I lay there looking at him, he turned and regarded me. His deep eyes glowed with a soft, calm light; but yet, I know not why,

they expressed more love than I had ever seen in them before. He used to love us nervously and passionately. He had now the look of
one whose whole nature is saturated with rest, and to whom the fitfulness, distrust, or distress of intense feeling acting upon a super-
sensitive organization, were impossible. As he looked towards me, he smiled. He had one of the sweetest smiles that ever illuminated a
mortal face.

“Why, Father!” I said aloud. He nodded encouragingly, but did not speak.
“Father?” I repeated, “Father, is this you?” He laughed a little, softly, putting up one hand and tossing his hair off from his

forehead—an old way of his.

“What are you here for?” I asked again. “Did Mother send for you, too?”
When I had said this, I felt confused and troubled; for though I did not remember that he was dead—I mean I did not put the

thought in any such form to myself, or use that word or any of its synonyms—yet I remembered that he had been absent from our
family circle for a good while, and that if Mother had sent for him because I had a brain fever, it would have been for some reason not
according to her habit.

“It is strange,” I said. “It isn’t like her. I don’t understand the thing at all.”
Now, as I continued to look at the corner of the room where my father was sitting, I saw that he had risen from the cushioned

window-seat, and taken a step or two towards me. He stopped, however, and stood quite still, and looked at me most lovingly and
longingly; and then it was that he held out his arms to me.

“Oh,” cried I, “I wish I could come! But you don’t know how sick I am. I have not walked a step for over two weeks.”
He did not speak even yet, but still held out his arms with that look of unutterably restful love. I felt the elemental tie between

parent and child draw me. It seemed to me as if I had reached the foundation of all human feeling; as if I had gone down—how shall I
say it?—below the depths of all other love. I had always known I loved him, but not like that. I was greatly moved.

“But you don’t understand me,” I repeated with some agitation. “I can’t walk.” I thought it very strange that he did not, in

consideration of my feebleness, come to me.

Then for the first time he spoke.
“Come,” he said gently. His voice sounded quite natural; I only noticed that he spoke under his breath, as if not to awake the

nurse, or any person who was in the room.

At this, I moved, and sat up on the edge of my bed; although I did so easily enough, I lost courage at that point. It seemed

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impossible to go farther. I felt a little chilly, and remembered, too, that I was not dressed. A warm white woolen wrapper of my own,
and my slippers, were within reach, by the head of the bed; Alice wore them when she watched with me. I put these things on, and
then paused, expecting to be overcome with exhaustion after the effort. To my surprise, I did not feel tired at all. I believe, rather, I felt
a little stronger. As I put the clothes on, I noticed the magenta geranium across the room. These, I think, were the only things which
attracted my attention.

“Come here to me,” repeated Father; he spoke more decidedly, this time with a touch of authority. I remembered hearing him

speak just so when Tom was learning to walk; he began by saying, “Come, sonny boy!” but when the baby played the coward, he
said, “My son, come here!”

As if I had been a baby, I obeyed. I put my feet to the floor, and found that I stood strongly. I experienced a slight giddiness for a

moment, but when this passed, my head felt clearer than before. I walked steadily out into the middle of the room. Each step was
firmer than the other. As I advanced, he came to meet me. My heart throbbed. I thought I should have fallen, not from weakness, but
from joy.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said encouragingly; “that is right. You are doing finely. Only a few steps more. There!”
It was done. I had crossed the distance which separated us, and my dear Father, after all those years, took me, as he used to do,

into his arms....

He was the first to speak, and he said:—
“You poor little girl!—But it is over now.”
“Yes, it is over now,” I answered. I thought he referred to the difficult walk across the room, and to my long illness, now so

happily at an end. He smiled and patted me on the cheek, but made no other answer.

“I must tell Mother that you are here,” I said presently. I had not looked behind me or about me. Since the first sight of my father

sitting in the window, I had not observed any other person, and could not have told who was in the room.

“Not yet,” my father said. “We may not speak to her at present. I think we had better go.”
I lifted my face to say, “Go where?” but my lips did not form the question. It was just as it used to be when he came from the

study and held out his hand, and said “Come,” and I went anywhere with him, neither asking, nor caring, so long as it was with him;
and then he used to play or walk with me, and I forgot the whole world besides. I put my hand in his without a question, and we
moved towards the door.

“I suppose you had better go this way,” he said, with a slight hesitation, as we passed out and across the hall.
“Any way you like best,” I said joyfully. He smiled, and still keeping my hand, led me down the stairs. As we went down, I heard

the little Swiss clock, above in my room, strike the half hour after two.

I noticed everything in the hall as we descended; it was as if my vision, as well as the muscles of motion, grew stronger with each

moment. I saw the stair-carpeting with its faded Brussels pattern, once rich, and remembered counting the red roses on it the night I
went up with the fever on me; reeling and half delirious, wondering how I could possibly afford to be sick. I saw the hat-tree with
Tom’s coat, and Alice’s blue Shetland shawl across the old hair-cloth sofa. As we opened the door, I saw the muffled bell. I stood for
a moment upon the threshold of my old home, not afraid but perplexed.

My father seemed to understand my thoughts perfectly, though I had not spoken, and he paused for my reluctant mood. I thought

of all the years I had spent there. I thought of my childhood and girlhood; of the tempestuous periods of life which that quiet roof had
hidden; of the calms upon which it had brooded. I thought of sorrows that I had forgotten, and those which I had prayed in vain to
forget. I thought of temptations and of mistakes and of sins, from which I had fled back asking these four walls to shelter me. I thought
of the comfort and blessedness that I had never failed to find in the old house. I shrank from leaving it. It seemed like leaving my body.

When the door had been opened, the night air rushed in. I could see the stars, and knew, rather than felt, that it was cold. As we

stood waiting, an icicle dropped from the eaves, and fell, breaking into a dozen diamond flashes at our feet. Beyond, it was dark.

“It seems to me a great exposure,” I said reluctantly, “to be taken out into a winter night,—at such an hour, too! I have been so

very sick.”

“Are you cold?” asked my father gently. After some thought I said:—
“No, sir.”
For I was not cold. For the first time I wondered why.
“Are you tired?”
No, I was not tired.
“Are you afraid?”
“A little, I think, sir.”
“Would you like to go back, Molly, and rest awhile?”
“If you please, Papa.”
The old baby-word came instinctively in answer to the baby-name. He led me like a child, and like a child I submitted. It was like

him to be so thoughtful of my weakness. My dear father was always one of those rare men who think of little things largely, and so
bring, especially into the lives of women, the daily comfort which makes the infinite preciousness of life.

We went into the parlor and sat down. It was warm there and pleasant. The furnace was well on, and embers still in the grate.

The lamps were not lighted, yet the room was not dark. I enjoyed being down there again after all those weeks up-stairs, and was
happy in looking at the familiar things, the afghan on the sofa, and the magazines on the table, uncut because of my illness; Mother’s
work-basket, and Alice’s music folded away.

“It was always a dear old room,” said Father, seating himself in his own chair, which we had kept for twenty years in its old

place. He put his head back, and gazed peacefully about.

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When I felt rested, and better, I asked him if we should start now.
“Just as you please,” he said quietly. “There is no hurry. We are never hurried.”
“If we have anything to do,” I said, “I had rather do it now I think.”
“Very well,” said Father, “that is like you.” He rose and held out his hand again. I took it once more, and once more we went out

to the threshold of our old home. This time I felt more confidence, but when the night air swept in, I could not help shrinking a little in
spite of myself, and showing the agitation which overtook me.

“Father!” I cried, “Father! where are we going?”
My father turned at this, and looked at me solemnly. His face seemed to shine and glow. He looked from what I felt was a great

height. He said:—

“Are you really afraid, Mary, to go anywhere with me?”
“No, no!” I protested in a passion of regret and trust, “my dear father! I would go any where in earth or Heaven with you!”
“Then come,” he said softly.
I clasped both hands, interlocking them through his arm, and we shut the door and went down the steps together and out into the

winter dawn.

II.

It was neither dark nor day; and as we stepped into the village streets the confused light trembled about us delicately. The stars

were still shining. Snow was on the ground; and I think it had freshly fallen in the night, for I noticed that the way before us lay quite
white and untrodden. I looked back over my shoulders as my father closed the gate, which he did without noise. I meant to take a
gaze at the old house, from which, with a thrill at the heart, I began to feel that I was parting under strange and solemn conditions. But
when I glanced up the path which we had taken, my attention was directed altogether from the house, and from the slight sadness of
the thought I had about it.

The circumstance which arrested me was this. Neither my father’s foot nor mine had left any print upon the walk. From the front

door to the street, the fine fair snow lay unbroken; it stirred, and rose in restless flakes like winged creatures under the gentle wind,
flew a little way, and fell again, covering the surface of the long white path with a foam so light, it seemed as if thought itself could not
have passed upon it without impression. I can hardly say why I did not call my father’s attention to this fact.

As we walked down the road the dawn began to deepen. The stars paled slowly. The intense blue-black and purple of the night

sky gave way to the warm grays that precede sunrise in our climate. I saw that the gold and the rose were coming. It promised to be a
mild morning, warmer than for several days. The deadly chill was out of the air. The snow yielded on the outlines of the drifts, and
relaxed as one looked at it, as snow does before melting, and the icicles had an air of expectation, as if they hastened to surrender to
the annunciation of a warm and impatient winter’s day.

“It is going to thaw,” I said aloud.
“It seems so to you,” replied my father, vaguely.
“But at least it is very pleasant,” I insisted.
“I’m glad you find it so,” he said; “I should have been disappointed if it had struck you as cold, or—gloomy—in any way.”
It was still so early that all the village was asleep. The blinds and curtains of the houses were drawn and the doors yet locked.

None of our neighbors were astir, nor were there any signs of traffic yet in the little shops. The great factory-bell, which woke the
operatives at half-past four, had rung, but this was the only evidence as yet of human life or motion. It did not occur to me, till
afterwards, to wonder at the inconsistency between the hour struck by my own Swiss clock and the factory time.

I was more interested in another matter which just then presented itself to me.
The village, as I say, was still asleep. Once I heard the distant hoofs of a horse sent clattering after the doctor, and ridden by a

messenger from a household in mortal need. Up to this time we two had seemed to be the only watchers in all the world.

Now, as I turned to see if I could discover whose horse it was and so who was in emergency, I observed suddenly that the

sidewalk was full of people. I say full of people; I mean that there was a group behind us; a few, also, before us; some, too, were
crossing the street. They conversed together standing at the corners, or walked in twos, as father and I were doing; or strolled, some
of them alone. Some of them seemed to have immediate business and to be in haste; others sauntered as he who has no occupation.
Some talked and gesticulated earnestly, or laughed loudly. Others went with a thoughtful manner, speaking not at all.

As I watched them I began to recognize here and there, a man, or a woman;—there were more men than women among them,

and there were no children.

A few of these people, I soon saw, were old neighbors of ours; some I had known when I was a child, and had forgotten till this

moment. Several of them bowed to us as we passed along. One man stopped and waited for us, and spoke to Father, who shook
hands with him; intimating, however, pleasantly enough, that he was in haste, and must be excused for passing on.

“Yes, yes, I see,” said the man with a glance at me. I then distinctly saw this person’s face, and knew him beyond a doubt, for an

old neighbor, a certain Mr. Snarl, a miserly, sanctimonious man—I had never liked him.

“Father!” I stopped short. “Father, that man is dead. He has been dead for twenty years!”
Now, at this, I began to tremble; yet not from fear, I think; from amazement, rather, and the great confusion which I felt.
“And there”—I pointed to a pale young man who had been thrown from his carriage (it was said because he was in no condition

to drive)—“there is Bobby Bend. He died last winter.”

“Well,” said Father quietly, “and what then?”

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“And over there—why, certainly that is Mrs. Mersey!”
I had known Mrs. Mersey for a lovely woman. She died of a fever contracted in the care of a poor, neglected creature. I saw her

at this moment across and far down the street, coming from a house where there was trouble. She came with a swift, elastic motion,
unlike that of any of the others who were about us; the difference was marked, and yet one which I should have found it at that time
impossible to describe. Perhaps I might have said that she hovered above rather than touched the earth; but this would not have
defined the distinction. As I looked after her she disappeared; in what direction I could not tell.

“So they are dead people,” I said, with a sort of triumph; almost as if I had dared my father to deny it. He smiled.
“Father, I begin to be perplexed. I have heard of these hallucinations, of course, and read the authenticated stories, but I never

supposed I could be a subject of such illusions. It must be because I have been so sick.”

“Partly because you have been so sick—yes,” said Father drawing down the corners of his mouth, in that way he had when he

was amused. I went on to tell him that it seemed natural to see him, but that I was surprised to meet those others who had left us, and
that I did not find it altogether agreeable.

“Are you afraid?” he asked me, as he had before. No, I could not say that I was afraid.
“Then hasten on,” he said in a different tone, “our business is not with them, at present. See! we have already left them behind.”
And, indeed, when I glanced back, I saw that we had. We, too, were now traveling alone together, and at a much faster speed,

towards the outskirts of the town. We were moving eastward. Before us the splendid day was coming up. The sky was unfolding,
shade above shade, paler at the edge, and glowing at the heart, like the petals of a great rose.

The snow was melting on the moors towards which we bent our steps; the water stood here and there in pools, and glistened. A

little winter bird—some chickadee or wood-pecker—was bathing in one of these pools; his tiny brown body glowed in the brightness,
flashing to and fro. He chirped and twittered and seemed bursting with joy. As we approached the moors, the stalks of the sumachs,
the mulberries, the golden-rod, and asters, all the wayside weeds and the brown things that we never know and never love till winter,
rose beautiful from the snow; the icicles melted and dripped from them; the dead-gold-colored leaves of the low oaks rustled; at a
distance we heard the sweet sough from a grove of pines; behind us the morning bells of the village broke into bubbles of cheerful
sound. As we walked on together I felt myself become stronger at every step; my heart grew light.

“It is a good world,” I cried, “it is a good world!”
“So it is,” said my father heartily, “and yet—my dear daughter”—He hesitated; so long that I looked into his face earnestly, and

then I saw that a strange gravity had settled upon it. It was not like any look that I had ever seen there before.

“I have better things to show you,” he said gently.
“I do not understand you, sir.”
“We have only begun our journey, Mary; and—if you do not understand—but I thought you would have done so by this time—I

wonder if she is going to be frightened after all!”

We were now well out upon the moors, alone together, on the side of the hill. The town looked far behind us and insignificant.

The earth dwindled and the sky grew, as we looked from one to the other. It seemed to me that I had never before noticed how small
a portion of our range of vision is filled by the surface of earth, and what occupies it; and how immense the proportion of the heavens.
As we stood there, it seemed to overwhelm us.

“Rise,” said my father in a voice of solemn authority, “rise quickly!”
I struggled at his words, for he seemed to slip from me, and I feared to lose him. I struggled and struck out into the air; I felt a

wild excitement, like one plunged into a deep sea, and desperately swimming, as animals do, and a few men, from blind instinct, having
never learned. My father spoke encouragingly, and with tenderness. He never once let go my hand. I felt myself, beyond all doubt,
soaring—slowly and weakly—but surely ascending above the solid ground.

“See! there is nothing to fear,” he said from time to time. I did not answer. My heart beat fast. I exerted all my strength and took

a stronger stroke. I felt that I gained upon myself. I closed my eyes, looking neither above nor below.

Suddenly, as gently as the opening of a water lily, and yet as swiftly as the cleaving of the lightning, there came to me a thought

which made my brain whirl, and I cried aloud:

“Father, am I DEAD?” My hands slipped—I grew dizzy—wavered—and fluttered. I was sure that I should fall. At that instant I

was caught with the iron of tenderness and held, like a very young child, in my father’s arms. He said nothing, only patted me on the
cheek, as we ascended, he seeing, and I blind; he strength, and I weakness; he who knew all, and I who knew nothing, silently with the
rising sun athwart the rose-lit air.

I was awed, more than there are words to say; but I felt no more fear than I used to do when he carried me on his shoulder up

the garden walk, after it grew dark, when I was tired out with play.

III.

I use the words “ascension” and “arising” in the superficial sense of earthly imagery. Of course, carefully speaking, there can be

no up or down to the motion of beings detached from a revolving globe, and set adrift in space. I thought of this in the first moment,
with the keenness which distinguishes between knowledge and experience. I knew when our journey came to an end, by the gradual
cessation of our rapid motion; but at first I did not incline to investigate beyond this fact. Whether I was only tired, or giddy, or whether
a little of what we used to call faintness overcame me, I can hardly say. If this were so, it was rather a spiritual than a physical
disability; it was a faintness of the soul. Now I found this more energetic than the bodily sensations I had known. I scarcely sought to
wrestle against it, but lay quite still, where we had come to a halt.

I wish to say here, that if you ask me where this was, I must answer that I do not know. I must say distinctly that, though after the

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act of dying I departed from the surface of the earth, and reached the confines of a different locality, I cannot yet instruct another
where this place may be.

My impression that it was not a vast distance (measured, I mean, by an astronomical scale) from our globe, is a strong one,

which, however, I cannot satisfactorily defend. There seemed to be flowers about me; I wondered what they were, but lay with my
face hidden in my arm, not caring yet to look about. I thought of that old-fashioned allegory called “The Distant Hills,” where the good
girl, when she died, sank upon a bed of violets; but the bad girl slipped upon rolling stones beneath a tottering ruin. This trifling memory
occupied me for some moments; yet it had so great significance to me, that I recall it, even now, with pungent gratitude.

“I shall remember what I have read.” This was my first thought in the new state to which I had come. Minna was the name of the

girl in the allegory. The illustrations were very poor, but had that uncanny fascination which haunts allegorical pictures—often the more
powerful because of their rudeness.

As I lay there, still not caring, or even not daring to look up, the fact that I was crushing flowers beneath me became more

apparent; a delicate perfume arose and surrounded me; it was like and yet unlike any that I had ever known; its familiarity entranced,
its novelty allured me. Suddenly I perceived what it was—

“Mignonette!”
I laughed at my own dullness in detecting it, and could not help wondering whether it were accident or design that had given me

for my first experience in the new life, the gratification of a little personal taste like this. For a few moments I yielded to the pure and
exquisite perfume, which stole into my whole nature, or it seemed to me so then. Afterwards I learned how little I knew of my “whole
nature” at that time.

Presently I took courage, and lifted my head. I hardly know what I expected to see. Visions of the Golden City in the

Apocalypse had flitted before me. I thought of the River of Death in the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” of the last scene in the “Voyage of Life,”
of Theremin’s “Awakening,” of several famous books and pictures which I had read or seen, describing what we call Heaven. These
works of the human imagination—stored away perhaps in the frontal lobes of the brain, as scientists used to tell us—had influenced my
anticipations more than I could have believed possible till that moment.

I was indeed in a beautiful place; but it did not look, in any respect, as I had expected. No; I think not in any respect. Many

things which happened to me later, I can describe more vividly than I can this first impression. In one way it was a complex, in another,
a marvelously simple one. Chiefly, I think I had a consciousness of safety—infinite safety. All my soul drew a long breath—“Nothing
more can happen to me!” Yet, at the same time, I felt that I was at the outset of all experience. It was as if my heart cried aloud,
“Where shall I begin?”

I looked about and abroad. My father stood at a little distance from me, conversing with some friends. I did not know them.

They had great brightness and beauty of appearance. So, also, had he. He had altered perceptibly since he met me in the lower world,
and seemed to glow and become absorbent of light from some source yet unseen. This struck me forcibly in all the people whom I saw
—there were many of them, going to and fro busily—that they were receptive and reflecting beings. They differed greatly in the degree
in which they gave this impression; but all gave it. Some were quite pale, though pure in color; others glowed and shone. Yet when I
say color, I use an earthly word, which does not express my meaning. It was more the atmosphere or penumbra, in which each
moved, that I refer to, perhaps, than the tint of their bodies. They had bodies, very like such as I was used to. I saw that I myself was
not, or so it appeared, greatly changed. I had form and dress, and I moved at will, and experienced sensations of pleasure and, above
all, of magnificent health. For a while I was absorbed, without investigating details, in the mere sense of physical ease and power. I did
not wish to speak, or to be spoken to, nor even to stir and exercise my splendid strength. It was more than enough to feel it, after all
those weeks of pain. I lay back again upon the mignonette; as I did so, I noticed that the flowers where my form had pressed them
were not bruised; they had sprung erect again; they had not wilted, nor even hung their heads as if they were hurt—I lay back upon,
and deep within, the mignonette, and, drowned in the delicate odor, gazed about me.

Yes; I was truly in a wonderful place. It was in the country (as we should say below), though I saw signs of large centres of life,

outlines of distant architecture far away. There were hills, and vast distances, and vistas of hill tints in the atmosphere. There were
forests of great depth. There was an expanse of shining water. There were fields of fine extent and color, undulating like green seas.
The sun was high—if it were the sun. At least there was great brilliance about me. Flowers must have been abundant, for the air was
alive with perfumes.

When I have said this, I seem to have said little or nothing. Certain it is that these first impressions came to me in broad masses,

like the sweep of a large brush or blender upon canvas. Of details I received few, for a long time. I was overcome with a sense of
Nature—freedom—health—beauty, as if—how shall I say it?—as if for the first time I understood what generic terms meant; as if I
had entered into the secret of all abstract glory; as if what we had known as philosophical or as poetical phrases were now become
attainable facts, each possessing that individual existence in which dreamers upon earth dare to believe, and of which no doubter can
be taught.

I am afraid I do not express this with anything like the simplicity with which I felt it; and to describe it with anything resembling the

power would be impossible.

I felt my smallness and ignorance in view of the wonders which lay before me. “I shall have time enough to study them,” I thought,

but the thought itself thrilled me throughout, and proved far more of an excitant than a sedative. I rose slowly, and stood trembling
among the mignonette. I shielded my eyes with my hand, not from any glare or dazzle or strain, but only from the presence and the
pressure of beauty, and so stood looking off. As I did so, certain words came to mind with the haunting voice of a broken quotation:

“Neither have entered into the heart of man”—
“The things which God hath prepared”—

It was a relief to me to see my father coming towards me at that moment, for I had, perhaps, undergone as much keen emotion as

one well bears, compressed into a short space of time. He met me smiling.

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“And how is it, Mary?”
“My first Bible verse has just occurred to me, Father—the first religious thought I’ve had in Heaven yet!” I tried to speak lightly,

feeling too deeply for endurance. I repeated the words to him, for he asked me what they were which had come to me.

“That is a pleasant experience,” he said quietly. “It differs with us all. I have seen people enter in a transport of haste to see the

Lord Himself—noticing nothing, forgetting everything. I have seen others come in a transport of terror—so afraid they were of Him.”

“And I had scarcely thought about seeing Him till now!” I felt ashamed of this. But my father comforted me by a look.
“Each comes to his own by his own,” he said. “The nature is never forced. Here we unfold like a leaf, a flower. He expects

nothing of us but to be natural.”

This seemed to me a deep saying; and the more I thought of it the deeper it seemed. I said so as we walked, separate still from

the others, through the beautiful weather. The change from a New England winter to the climate in which I found myself was, in itself,
not the least of the great effects and delights which I experienced that first day.

If nothing were expected of us but to be natural, it was the more necessary that it should be natural to be right.
I felt the full force of this conviction as it had never been possible to feel it in the other state of being, where I was under restraint.

The meaning of liberty broke upon me like a sunburst. Freedom was in and of itself the highest law. Had I thought that death was to
mean release from personal obedience? Lo, death itself was but the elevation of moral claims, from lower to higher. I perceived how
all demands of the larger upon the lesser self must be increased in the condition to which I had arrived. I felt overpowered for the
moment with the intensity of these claims. It seemed to me that I had never really known before, what obligation meant. Conduct was
now the least of difficulties. For impulse, which lay behind conduct, for all force which wrought out fact in me, I had become
accountable.

“As nearly as I can make it out, Father,” I said, “henceforth I shall be responsible for my nature.”
“Something like that; not altogether.”
“The force of circumstance and heredity,”—I began, using the old earthly patois. “Of course I’m not to be called to account for

what I start with here, any more than I was for what I started with there. That would be neither science nor philosophy.”

“We are neither unscientific nor unphilosophical, you will find,” said my father, patiently.
“I am very dull, sir. Be patient with me. What I am trying to say, I believe, is that I shall feel the deepest mortification if I do not

find it natural to do right. This feeling is so keen, that to be wrong must be the most unnatural thing in the world. There is certainly a
great difference from what it used to be; I cannot explain it. Already I am ashamed of the smallness of my thoughts when I first looked
about in this place. Already I cannot understand why I did not spring like a fountain to the Highest, to the Best. But then, Father, I
never was a devotee, you know.”

When I had uttered these words I felt a recoil from myself, and sense of discord. I was making excuses for myself. That used to

be a fault of the past life. One did not do it here. It was as if I had committed some grave social indecorum. I felt myself blushing. My
father noticed my embarrassment, and called my attention to a brook by which we were walking, beginning to talk of its peculiar
translucence and rhythm, and other little novelties, thus kindly diverting me from my distress, and teaching me how we were spared
everything we could be in heaven, even in trifles like this. I was not so much as permitted to bear the edge of my regret, without the
velvet of tenderness interposing to blunt the smart. It used to be thought among us below that one must be allowed to suffer from error,
to learn. It seemed to be found here, that one learned by being saved from suffering. I wondered how it would be in the case of a really
grave wrong which I might be so miserable as to commit; and if I should ever be so unfortunate as to discover by personal experience.

This train of thought went on while I was examining the brook. It had brilliant colors in the shallows, where certain strange agates

formed pebbles of great beauty. There were also shells. A brook with shells enchanted me. I gathered some of them; they had opaline
tints, and some were transparent as spun glass; they glittered in the hand, and did not dull when out of the water, like the shells we
were used to. The shadows of strange trees hung across the tiny brown current, and unfamiliar birds flashed like tossed jewels
overhead, through the branches and against the wonderful color of the sky. The birds were singing. One among them had a marvelous
note. I listened to it for some time before I discovered that this bird was singing a Te Deum. How I knew that it was a Te Deum I
cannot say. The others were more like earthly birds, except for the thrilling sweetness of their notes—and I could not see this one, for
she seemed to be hidden from sight upon her nest. I observed that the bird upon the nest sang here as well as that upon the bough; and
that I understood her: “Te Deum laudamus—laudamus” as distinctly as if I had been listening to a human voice.

When I had comprehended this, and stood entranced to listen, I began to catch the same melody in the murmur of the water, and

perceived, to my astonishment, that the two, the brook and the bird, carried parts of the harmony of a solemn and majestic mass.
Apparently these were but portions of the whole, but all which it was permitted me to hear. My father explained to me that it was not
every natural beauty which had the power to join in such surpassing chorals; these were selected, for reasons which he did not attempt
to specify. I surmised that they were some of the simplest of the wonders of this mythical world, which were entrusted to new-comers,
as being first within the range of their capacities. I was enraptured with what I heard. The light throbbed about me. The sweet harmony
rang on. I bathed my face in the musical water—it was as if I absorbed the sound at the pores of my skin. Dimly I received a hint of
the possible existence of a sense or senses of which I had never heard.

What wonders were to come! What knowledge, what marvel, what stimulation and satisfaction! And I had but just begun! I was

overwhelmed with this thought, and looked about; I knew not which way to turn; I had not what to say. Where was the first step?
What was the next delight? The fire of discovery kindled in my veins. Let us hasten, that we may investigate Heaven!

“Shall we go on?” asked Father, regarding me earnestly.
“Yes, yes!” I cried, “let us go on. Let us see more—learn all. What a world have I come to! Let us begin at the beginning, and go

to the end of it! Come quickly!”

I caught his hand, and we started on my eager mood. I felt almost a superabundance of vitality, and sprang along; there was

everlasting health within my bounding arteries; there was eternal vigor in my firm muscle and sinews. How shall I express, to one who

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has never experienced it, the consciousness of life that can never die?

I could have leaped, flown, or danced like a child. I knew not how to walk sedately, like others whom I saw about us, who

looked at me smiling, as older people look at the young on earth. “I, too, have felt thus—and thus.” I wanted to e...